Though most pets, such as cats and dogs, enjoy permanent housing facilities in the homes or yards of their owners, other temporary housing facilities are also occasionally required. Temporary housing facilities may be needed to isolate a pet during specific occasions, such as during yard work or the entry of visitors into a home. Temporary housing facilities may also be needed to accommodate a pet separated from its normal environs, or to serve as a carrier in which the pet may be transported from place to place. The size of temporary housing facilities appropriate for such purposes, and the corresponding difficulty in storing such temporary housing facilities, may discourage the retention of temporary housing facilities beyond the specific occasion for which they were purchased. In response to the high cost and waste associated with the replacement of temporary housing facilities so disposed of, a number of cages capable of being collapsed to a smaller size for easy storage were developed. These include U.S. Pat. No. 5,669,331 to Richmond, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,484,540 to Yamamoto, among others.
However, despite the storage advantages such previous collapsible cages have presented over their larger and bulkier non-collapsible brethren, significant deficiencies still remained. Specifically, the transition of previous cages from a collapsed to an expanded state, or the reverse transition, has proved difficult to achieve, especially when attempted by a single individual (who may be simultaneously attempting to control a distressed and highly uncooperative pet). In addition, the manner in which previous cages transitioned from an expanded to a collapsed state has limited the reduction in cage size achievable through the transition. A need exists for an improved collapsible cage that addresses these deficiencies.